


Running for the Bus

by deskclutter



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, modern day AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiffany faces a tough choice: miss the school bus or lose one of her family's sheep? And she has to make her decision quick, because the sheep is sailing away towards the river at uncanny speed...</p><p>A Discworld comment fic fill. (Prompt: 'Tiffany Aching- modern AU'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running for the Bus

Like most things that Tiffany owned, the watch she wore on her left wrist was a hand-me-down. Its leather band was worn around the third hole, where its previous owner had threaded the tang of the buckle through it day after day over the years. It was also slightly too large for Tiffany's wrist, which her mother complained about now and again because she thought an oversized watch was unladylike. But she did not stop Tiffany from wearing it.

It was this watch that Tiffany consulted now, squinting to squeeze as much visibility as she could from the early morning darkness. _You might be late,_ she thought to herself. She looked up again where a single sheep was sailing through an empty field and into the trees with unnatural haste.

_You might lose a sheep._

Tiffany set her schoolbag down by the wooden gate and sprinted after the runaway sheep as fast as her nine-year-old legs would take her.

As she leapt over roots and stones, she pondered what on earth would steal a sheep in such a strange manner, rushing it away so fast that it was too stunned to call for help. Not dogs, surely, or any other canine species. She strained her ears for sounds of the sheep-nappers. "Crivens!" she heard in the distance. "Is she still after us noo?"

"Yes, I am," Tiffany called. "If you put our sheep back, you won't be sorry for it later!"

This only seemed to make the thieves redouble their efforts.

The river was ahead, Tiffany knew, but she did not know what the thieves would do when they got there.

To her amazement, she saw that they had stopped. Now that they were no longer in the grass, she could also see that there were four little creatures, one under each of the sheep's hooves. "Crivens!" she heard one of them say again, and just as suddenly as they had stopped, they zoomed down the bank again. Winded, Tiffany jogged up to the riverbank instead to glare at the back of the sheep. "Bring it back!" she shouted.

A round basket floating just in front of where the sheep had been said, "Crivens! Gang awa' oot o' here, ye daft wee ninny! 'Ware the green heid!"

Tiffany paid the basket closer attention. There were two little men in the basket, both setting their oars to the river. One was dripping wet, but his hair was no less riddled with beads and small pieces of cloth than the dry one. They both wore small kilts and were furiously paddling away.

"Excuse me!" Tiffany shouted. "Are you fairies?"

But they were gone, and in their wake, a susurrus swept up.

Her grandmother's dictionary defined a susurrus as 'a low soft sound, as of whispering or muttering'. Tiffany liked to roll the word on her tongue; it sounded to her of mysteries and people plotting behind darkened doors.

It was certainly a susurration that rustled and whispered in the alder leaves and river reeds, though Tiffany knew that there was no wind. The sky darkened noticeably; the air turned fizzy with the same thing that made the darkening water in the river bubble...

Warily, Tiffany took a careful step back, and another -- so that when a creature with green water-weed hair and a pair of long, skinny arms lashed out of the water, its sharp claws raking furiously at the bank, Tiffany was not to be found.

She caught a glimpse of sharp teeth and huge eyes before it sank back into the water with a thwarted scream.

She watched the river for a thoughtful moment and said, "Fairies!" with the disgusted tone of one who hadn't the time to be bothered with such things. And she hadn't; the sky lightened, and it was a considerably paler grey than it had been before the susurrus had come upon that little piece of river. Tiffany checked her water and, with a last glare at the river, trotted back to her schoolbag, panting to a stop just as the old school bus rolled up, grumbling, and it hissed at her for good measure as the door opened. Tiffany adjusted the pleats of her pinafore, tugged the sleeve of her PE shirt straight, and climbed on. 

 

There was a book at home, which sat on what Tiffany's mum called 'Granny Aching's Library' and everyone else called 'Granny's Shelf'. Tiffany would have liked to consult it, but as she was not at home, she did the next best thing and went to the library at recess.

The Goode Childe's Booke of Faerie Stories had been written by a local author in an age when Queens had had more power. Almost every household on the downs had a copy, because the author had paid for everyone to have a copy, which made them happy because it had cost them very little, but it also put the author quite out of business and he had vowed never to write again. Tiffany had read the book over and over before she had discovered the existence of the library card and the public bus. Sometimes the illustrated goblin in its pages still haunted her dreams.

She had never opened the school's copy before, and she discovered, after she took a while to remember the author's name, that the school had twelve copies of The Goode Childe's Booke of Faerie Tales, which was far too many 'e's than any shelf should have to bear. She pulled out the least dilapidated copy, which had been marked in pen. The illustrated goblin's eyes had been coloured in so deeply that Tiffany was surprised that the paper hadn't torn. The space where its eyes had been made her uneasy, so she turned the page.

After she had put it back, she went to the computer bank, which hummed almost soothingly at her. She opened a new window and conducted a search. "Eight inches," she said. "Why didn't they just _say_?"

 

When the school bus deposited her back at the gate of the Home Farm, Tiffany looked up to see her brother swinging on the wooden gate. He was not supposed to do that, but because Wentworth was the youngest, he got away with a lot of things. "Wanna sweetie!" he said to her in greeting.

Tiffany got him down from the gate and shut it firmly behind them as she marched him back to the house. "Oh, Tiffany," said her mother, looking harried. "There he is. Look, would you--?"

"I'll look after him," said Tiffany, pushing thoughts of homework towards tonight. "Is there anything to eat?"

As she stuffed her tea into her mouth, Tiffany got the largest frying pan off its hook and and a paper bag, into which she slipped a handful of sweets she had gotten fromthe bookshop. Then she took Wentworth, who was showing the beginnings of a tantrum because no one had given him any sweets, and they went down to the river.

She put the bag of sweets on the riverbank and called for Wentworth, who worked at the neck of the bag greedily, and watched the river.

There was the sound of nothing scurrying in the bushes or wittering in the air, which, Tiffany thought, was too odd to be natural. Tiffany moved herself casually behind a bush and gripped the handle of the pan.

The water looked deeper than she had ever known it to be all her life... And it began to bubble. A trout, laughing in the water? No, it wasn't.

On that thought, Tiffany Aching rushed out and swung her frying pan into Jenny Green-Teeth's screaming face with a ringing clang that quivered through her hands with a realness that Tiffany appreciated.

It sank into the water, which bubbled away into silence. The river cleared, and she heard the tentative sounds of the birds coming back.

"Sweetie!" Wentworth insisted, and Tiffany got the bag open for him. She took him by one sticky hand and led him home.

"Crivens!" said a voice in the bushes.

 

When they reached the gate, Tiffany and Wentworth discovered a sheep that looked familiar to Tiffany. She had watched its backside sail away from her in the early morning. After depositing Wentworth with one of their sisters, she led the sheep back out to her dad, and then she took her homework to the old potbellied stove that had been her grandmother's because it was quieter there.

The next morning, after leaving a saucer of milk on the front step, she stepped off the bus and got to her desk, where she found a piece of paper waiting for her. It read: I CAN TEACH YOU A LESSON YOU WON'T FORGET IN A HURRY.

**Author's Note:**

> Tiffany wears a pinafore because I wore a pinafore in primary school.
> 
> Title has been shamelessly stolen from a title of a song from the Mirrormask soundtrack.


End file.
